Recently in the Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments Category

High concentrations of heavy metals, like copper and gold, are toxic for most living creatures. This is not the case for the bacterium C. metallidurans, which has found a way to extract valuable trace elements from a compound of heavy metals without poisoning itself.

In a long-term experiment on the International Space Station, Fraunhofer researchers studied how the extreme conditions in space affect algae. Fraunhofer conducted this experiment in close cooperation with German and international partners. Research findings could benefit industrial applications and perhaps a mission to Mars.

A new water bear protein can protect the DNA of human cultured cells from otherwise lethal amounts of radiation damage, say a group of Japanese researchers, providing part of the answer to why tardigrades can live in deadly conditions.

To better understand how microbes behave in extreme environments, one possible proxy, not often considered by astrobiologists, is the human body. Over billions of years of evolution, certain species of microbes inside humans have adapted to environments in the human body that would be extremely rough to many other organisms.

A microbial partnership thriving in an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park has surrendered some of its lifestyle secrets to researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.